July 28, 2025, Science Highlights

GKP codes and quantum error correction

Performance and achievable rates of the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill code for pure-loss and amplification channels

PRX Quantum (2025)

Quantum error correction is a way to protect fragile quantum information from noise, and one powerful tool for this is a special kind of code called the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code.

In this study, scientists work out how well GKP codes can perform when information is lost or amplified, two of the most common problems in quantum communication.

The researchers show that the performance of these codes is closely tied to the geometry of their structure and the amount of energy put into them. They prove that under certain conditions, GKP codes can reach the absolute theoretical limit for how much information can be sent or stored, making them the first structured family of quantum codes to achieve this for both loss and amplification.

The paper is authored by Guo Zheng, Wenhao He, Gideon Lee, Kyungjoo Noh and Liang Jiang, who conducted their work at the University of Chicago, MIT and Amazon Web Services.

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